Recycling!

I have managed to reduce my rubbish from three bags to one by being quite strict with it for many years now, black plastic is just plastic that has been recycled to death apparently and cannot take any more hence it goes in the bin, polystyrene is just a pain! why is it used if it cannot be recycled.

despite the fact northamptonshire cc is in special measures & basically bankrupt we apparantly have one of the best recycling schemes in the country

we have a seperate wheely bin for all recyclable goods & it works really well. so it alternates our standard bin & recycling bin being collected.

tho the whole recycling idea is f***ed as it was build around china taking 80% of our refuse to turn into the everyday goods we buy but its not happening anymore so it will probably all end up in the same landfill.

‘Football isn’t instant coffee. You have to work at it. You must grow the bean, grind it.’ Ian Holloway

Croydon gives us three wheelie bins. Cardboard, other recyclables and rubbish. The rubbish bin is smaller than the other two. We always did it anyway and took the recycling to one of the three local centres. Don’t need to take it now

Irritates the hell out of me when I go to places where there are recycling bins for specific things and people put plastic cups or large plastic bottles in the rubbish, sometimes full of water. The country is full of ignorant tw&ts. And before anyone turns that political, they’re on both sides of the current argument.

1. for metal, it is done to reduce the highly destructive and expensive excavation work needed to extract ore. Also reduces processing costs considerably.

2. For paper/cardboard, it is not really about saving trees. It is about reducing the (toxic)treatment and bleaching agents used to turn wood into paper

3. For glass it is about reducing fossil fuels for furnaces. recycling glass requires less energy than starting with sand.

All very commendable.

Since the 1990's, Local Authorities were collecting old fridges (for £25 a pop)so they could extract the harmful CFC gases and re-use them. Trouble is, there were no extraction facilities in the UK, and lacking any foresight, successive Governments stockpiled old fridges at a site in Barking for 15 years, whilst they tried to think of a solution.

As a binman in the early 1990's we took fridges off residents for £10 (trousering the cash), and just crushed it in the wagon.

So when Local Authorities finally get their act together and start giving people recycling bins and providing bulk collection points in car parks, it irritates me greatly when,....

*people leave the metal caps on their bottles/jars when putting in the glass collection binThis adds considerable cost and complication to recycling glass.*people don't take the time to separate plastic from cardboard properly*leave bottles in cardboard boxes next to recycling bins.

It just seems, however easy you make it for people to do their bit, they are just too damn lazy to do the most basic of tasks.Look how many shopping trolleys are left around supermarket car parks, rather than returning then to a collection point. So supermarkets then hire trolley collectors, which in turn adds cost to your shopping.

And I try my best to reduce, re-use, recycle. Living amongst idiots can be draining

1. for metal, it is done to reduce the highly destructive and expensive excavation work needed to extract ore. Also reduces processing costs considerably.

2. For paper/cardboard, it is not really about saving trees. It is about reducing the (toxic)treatment and bleaching agents used to turn wood into paper

3. For glass it is about reducing fossil fuels for furnaces. recycling glass requires less energy than starting with sand.

All very commendable.

Since the 1990's, Local Authorities were collecting old fridges (for £25 a pop)so they could extract the harmful CFC gases and re-use them. Trouble is, there were no extraction facilities in the UK, and lacking any foresight, successive Governments stockpiled old fridges at a site in Barking for 15 years, whilst they tried to think of a solution.

As a binman in the early 1990's we took fridges off residents for £10 (trousering the cash), and just crushed it in the wagon.

My old man was a dustman with a hat He told me they once put half a mini in his truck for a drink.Back then there were no wheelie bins, it was the metal bins and they carried them.Now that was a hard job.I remember our garden was half full of aluminium saucepans he used to collect and scrap.I think about 1 in 5 were folded over half a brick to make the weight up.Very shrewd.

Like most people I try to recycle however it's not easy being green especially if you live in a flat.

Our communal bins include separate ones for paper, glass / plastic. That means you have to keep your waste separate in your flat until you take it to the bins. I have a large flat so no problem but what if you live in a bedsit on the 22nd floor?

What really annoys me is the lack of national standards. Some plastic cannot be recycled, some plastic will depend on your council. In other words the labelling on the container is no good as you have to know your local authority.

I have a list a mile long from Bromley about what they can do so I am supposed to know this ?

As for black plastic I heard a "green" say that it can be recycled but because it is black the sensors cannot correctly identify it. His solution was to make the manufactures use white plastic for food cartons. They use black for aesthetic reasons.

Anyway the solution is to have a national standard proper labelling and charge the manufactures if they use packaging that cannot be recycled.

In my day, we didn't have to worry about recycling, we were naturally green....

Milk came in glass bottles (to your doorstep) that were 'rinsed and returned'

Soft drinks/beer can in glass bottles that had a deposit charged on them - if you didn't take them back to the shop for the few coppers deposit someone else would!

Newspaper had 2 main recycling uses: Broadsheet was cut into 6 squares per page, Tabloid 4, a piece of string through a hole in the corner and that was the family's toilet paper for the week sorted, or

a sheet of paper folded diagonally then in 2" folds across, bent in half and 'woven' crosswise made the very best bricks for lighting the fire.

Old clothes (mostly natural fabrics in those days) either went to a jumble sale, to the rag and bone man for 1/6d a bag (or a goldfish or windmill depending on supply and demand), or were cut up and used as dusters, polishing cloths etc. It was a common sight to see windows being polished with a tatty pair of soft cotton underpants. Old towels has so many uses you couldn't list them all.

Meat from the butcher came wrapped in greaseproof paper, which was thrown away, and then 2 sheets of white cartridge paper which was cut up for drawing paper for the kids.

One gas copper of heated water, in a tin bath on the kitchen floor would wash an entire family. (and only happened once a week)

In my day, we didn't have to worry about recycling, we were naturally green....

Milk came in glass bottles (to your doorstep) that were 'rinsed and returned'

Soft drinks/beer can in glass bottles that had a deposit charged on them - if you didn't take them back to the shop for the few coppers deposit someone else would!

Newspaper had 2 main recycling uses: Broadsheet was cut into 6 squares per page, Tabloid 4, a piece of string through a hole in the corner and that was the family's toilet paper for the week sorted, or

a sheet of paper folded diagonally then in 2" folds across, bent in half and 'woven' crosswise made the very best bricks for lighting the fire.

Old clothes (mostly natural fabrics in those days) either went to a jumble sale, to the rag and bone man for 1/6d a bag (or a goldfish or windmill depending on supply and demand), or were cut up and used as dusters, polishing cloths etc. It was a common sight to see windows being polished with a tatty pair of soft cotton underpants. Old towels has so many uses you couldn't list them all.

Meat from the butcher came wrapped in greaseproof paper, which was thrown away, and then 2 sheets of white cartridge paper which was cut up for drawing paper for the kids.

One gas copper of heated water, in a tin bath on the kitchen floor would wash an entire family. (and only happened once a week)